Why Oh Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps? Part CCXIV Time to Bang My Head Against the Wall Once Again…

Why, oh why, can’t we get a better class of journalists? Those who write ABC’s The Note claim to be unable to understand Alan Greenspan’s nuanced–and consistent–position on fiscal policy issues. They write, “The Note has no idea what Alan Greenspan thinks about the prospects for growth and about the Bush economy, and that is after reading everything he said, and everything ABOUT what he said…” And those who write ABC’s The Note are close to the cream of the crop.

But it’s really not hard to understand Greenspan if you are willing to accept that his positions are always nuanced and that he is almost always polite. In Greenspan’s view, expressed yesterday and many times in the past. Greenspan believes that:

* In the long run the most important thing is to have a balanced federal budget. Having a budget not in deficit is especially important over the next decade because of the forthcoming retirement of the baby-boom generation. But it is always important. Having a budget that is not in deficit is job 1. Once that is taken care of, one can turn to other goals.
* In the long run the second most important thing to do is to shrink the size of the government. The federal government is too big. So when you have a choice, spending cuts are better than tax increases, and spending increases are worse than tax cuts. [You won't be surprised to learn that I disagree with Greenspan here.]
* Once one has a budget that is not in deficit and has settled on the size of the government, the next most important fiscal policy job is to get a good tax system: a more rational tax system is to be preferred to a less rational one, a system that taxes capital less (and labor more) is to be preferred to a system that taxes labor less (and capital more).
* In the short run, there are times when there may be a case for running a deficit to boost demand and reduce high unemployment–but now is not one of these times. [You won't be surprised to learn that I disagree with Greenspan on this point too: I think now is one of those times.]

This is what Greenspan believes. This is what Greenspan has believed for a long time. He believes in these four ideas, and he believes that the most important ideas come at the front of the list. Yet America’s journalists have a hard time with this. They say “he supported the dividend tax cut,” and then someone else says that “he worries about the deficit,” and someone else says “but he’s for spending cuts.” But the only way you can manipulate Greenspan’s sound bites to create the appearance of ambiguity is by ignoring the ordered structure of his thought. Point one–balance the budget–is most important. So making progress on point three–reducing capital taxation–is a good thing only if it does not move us backward on point one.

Why is this so hard for American journalists to understand? It’s not rocket science, after all. It’s elementary logic.

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